Now that your early admissions applications are in the hands of your top-choice colleges, take a moment to reflect on another important source of information colleges use to evaluate you. While it's not yet a universal policy to check a student's Facebook or Twitter pages, it is becoming more and more routine: "According to a recent Kaplan Test Prep survey of 350 admissions officers, more than 25 percent of school officials said they had looked up applicants on Facebook or Google. Off campus, a similar percentage of private scholarship organizations also acknowledge researching their applicants online, according to a National Scholarship Providers Association survey."

Every year, we always hear a story about a student whose chances were dashed due to an inappropriate posting on Facebook or a picture that gives off the wrong image. Read this article in Time magazine for more reasons to google yourself now and see what comes up. You've taken hours of your time writing the perfect essay describing who you are. Don't overlook making your online image just as clean. Admissions representatives know that you are teenagers, and that you don't always make the best decisions, but flaunting those not-so-good choices could be deadly to your chances of attending your dream college.